


Tili tili bom

by Shanachii



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ballet, Ballet Dancer Katsuki Yuuri, Ballet Dancer Yuri Plisetsky, Folklore, Horror, M/M, Psychological Horror, Slavic Folklore, Sugar Daddy, Surreal, Unreliable Narrator, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shanachii/pseuds/Shanachii
Summary: Victor called him one last time. As always, Yuuri turned to meet him.Yuuri Katsuki is the Premier Danseur of St. Petersburg’s most prized ballet company. Plagued by insomnia, his career is being threatened as he deteriorates in body and mind. What is Yuuri willing to do to stay at the top?Love, blood, betrayal, death. Is it worth it in the end?





	Tili tili bom

The lights were bright. The theatre glowed with colour. Frilled skirts, fitted nylon, slippers he could still feel caressing the souls of his feet. From the balcony, he could not hear it. Yet all the same, Yuuri knew that pitter patter of soft leather against the stage.

“Yuuri?”

It was warmth he felt, as one half of his face fell. Warmth that tingled at his finger tips and toes. Warmth that spread through his head as blotted, inky spots covered his vision.

“Yuuri!”

Victor called him one last time. As always, Yuuri turned to meet him.

* * *

It was of no consequence to Lilia Baranovskaya that Yuuri was tired. It was of no consequence that he was older than the other male lead, or bulkier than the women in the chorus. Lilia expected perfection from him. He was to be pliant, strong, ferocious and demure every time he came to her. Every time. Without fail.

Yuuri had failed her more than once these past months.

“What a time for the prince to turn back into a piggy,” the words of cut through the searing of muscle in Yuuri’s leg and water welling behind his eyes. Sting turned into dull, rhythmic aching as he listened. “I told Lilia I could’ve handled his role.”

“Hush, Yuratchka,” Mila scolded, looking past the curtain and waiting for the queue. “We have no business in what Madame Baranovskaya decides.”

Yuuri was sure Lilia had heard them, as she pushed at the straining leg, making him shake against the pressure. It was a painful relief she made no move to comfort him.

“Piggy,” the whisper came.

Yuuri disliked the way the Russian accent shot out the G sound. It reminded him of the airy pop of bullets from a gun with a silencer. Yes, that’s why he hated the nickname: the accent not the insult, the coarseness not the meaning.

“Katsuki,” Yuuri’s ankle was released from an iron grip. Slowly his leg was brought down. His foot landed flat on the ground as Lilia turned him. Her hand raised to his cheek. He couldn’t tell if it was a hard pat or a soft slap. “You will not let me down.”

Whether that was a threat or assurance Yuuri didn’t know. “Yes, Madame.”

“Piggy,” the word was hissed from the back of his partner’s throat.

Yuuri pushed himself to the hall of velvet curtain, looking over the stage. Petite, blonde and fierce. He was a Yuri so unlike himself it was odd to speak their name and hear his own.

The lights dimmed, easing their way from yellow to blue. It was a sad blue, a distant blue. It was a colour that let Yuuri see the dust in the air light a glittering mist. Music transitions seemed to brighten that affect as he felt the build. Each note prompted him like a step until he was awash in light, showered in the gazes of anonymous faces.

Yuri was on his arm, all sign of the dancer gone. He was not a boy in a costume. He was Hermia, smart and sweet in her silks. The flick of Hermia’s wrist as she gestured her Lysander forward, the smile painted onto his face, entirely void of the person Yuri had been seconds ago.

Yuuri was her Lysander. Yes, the hand draped dramatically over his chest, feeling a heartbeat that no longer belonged to him was Lysander’s. These feet, pacing on the ball to reach centre stage were Lysanders. This arm that pulled Hermia to the hollow space between his arms were Lysander. Lysander lifted his Hermia.

That was the scene. Doll-like porcelain faces expressing things beyond what anyone on a street could. Bodies used like ornaments to a story out of their control span and jumped to the shadows back lit by the sad blue of night. To dance was to move for them; to perform was to believe in that movement. Yuuri could dance. The character could perform. Could there be a more perfect combination?

Sweeping her arm, Hermia pushed him away, refusing his advances. Marriage, she asked for turning to her love, solemn and sacred like a temple made flesh. Lysander leapt towards her and landed with an impact that made the stage pounce. With a turn and a drop, he was on his knees before her. With an exhale of song softly beneath them the lights dimmed to black and their scene was over.

They stood in the dark, standing to take their bow. It was then he could hear it, sent through teeth. That wretched G sound again.

It’s just a sound, Yuuri, he reminded himself. Just a sound.

* * *

As Yuuri aged he knew he diminished in value on the stage. As he deteriorated in mind he diminished in value behind the stage as well. It was no small comfort to know that his value remained stagnant in front of the camera.

“Useless,” Yuri had slurred at him.

Yuuri could agree with that much. He was, in fact, useless. He had started his life before a lens useless. He would cry when his mother pointed a camera towards him as a child. He was useless today, squinting in the light of the press, letting Lilia speak for him. He would most likely die useless when it came to being captured on film. That was okay. At least it was consistent.

“Why don’t you boys mingle?” Lilia suggested over her shoulder, face as stony as a matron about to deliver punishment. “The sponsors will be looking forward to meeting you.”

Yuuri freed the air he’d had caged in his chest. The pressure on his lungs lightened with the release.

He knew how to play this part perfectly. Yuri would make his way to Yakov, smile and nod at lecherous old men and women under the guidance of the older man. Yuuri would down exactly two flutes of champagne and stand quietly in a corner until he was called for. These were the motions they went through off stage. It was as choreographed as any dance they had ever performed. After years of practice, Yuuri had the memory of this ballet sewn into his bones.

He was the danseur Yuuri Katsuki. This hand, reaching for a glass of alcohol from a server’s silver platter, belonged to the danseur. These lips, feeling the sting of the toxin on his chapped skin, were the danseur’s. These feet, carrying him to the solitary corner where he always stood, were under the danseur’s command. So, as he stood, smiling and sipping at his first drink, he paid no mind to old dame whose hand pinched his hip when she approached him. He ignored when a familiar man’s hand slithered around his waist. When some stranger spat in his ear as he whispered Russian words Yuuri never wanted to learn. It was the danseur’s hip, waist, ear. This wasn’t happening to him. If Yuuri had to deal with this he’d collapse in a cold, sweaty panic. This was the way the danseur’s public appreciated him. It happened to all of them.

Yuuri’s eyes darted towards Mila. Red hair, long legs, tan skin, tight dress. She stood on the arm of an older gentleman, one whose hands wandered lower-and-lower on her back by the second.

He could have it worse.

Time strutted by like a model on the cat walk. The rest of the room paled as Yuuri counted down the tick-tocks of her steps. Time sashayed, posed, twirled to her liking. All Yuuri could do was stand there watching. He wanted Time to run, burst from the room. He wanted the arms of the clock to move faster. He wanted Lilia to tap him on the shoulder and dismiss him. He wanted to go home, curl up in his bed where Time couldn’t find him. He wanted to sleep.

Oh, God how he wanted to sleep.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. Yuuri couldn’t be sure how long he had been standing there as the danseur. He did know he had passed his limit of exactly two flutes of champagne. He knew his display was halfway to being ruined. When he performed for shadowy figures on stage he did so in short bursts. Intervals of minutes on stage sectioned off by hours of stretching and standing and waiting. Now he stood as a breathing painting, hung against the wall in the corner. That was far more difficult. But he never slips prematurely from his role.

Correction: he never used to slip prematurely from his role.

Lately, the line between days blurred as Yuuri went nights without sleep. He was trying to keep track. He had passed out for an hour on Thursday. He couldn’t remember his morning on Friday. Had he slept Friday morning? No, he remembered now. Lilia had knocked him over as he danced in a hazy state of non-conscious movement. It made sense then. It had been at least two days between now and an hour of rest. It had been three between that hour’s rest and a proper four-hour nap. No one could do their job like that.

That’s how Yuuri justified himself as he reclaimed his body from the danseur. It’s what he told himself as he tore away from the wall in the corner. It’s what he thought when he caught Yuri’s eye across the hall. It’s what he knew to be true when the boy did the kindest thing possible. Yuri turned away

* * *

Yuuri tumbled through the dark, a one man disaster. Feeling along the walls of the dressing room. He dug through layers of petals and leafs left in honour of performers who weren’t him. Past the synthesized jungle the light switch had to be buried in. Muttering a jumbled heap of the worst english words he knew, Yuuri finally felt the smooth knob in his hand. He twisted it, setting the lights to dim.

The room was washed in cold, stale light - like fire reflecting off dusty glass. The winding blooms that lined the space left jagged shadows on the eggshell wall. The flowers bordering the lines of vanity mirrors cast images of sharp, twisted hands.

Yuuri walked through the room in a daze.

His hand dragged through fronds, stalks and ornamental flowering as he made his way to the table. He sorted each bouquet he passed in his mind: thorny roses for Mila, grainy lavender for Sara, soft lilies for Yuri, puckered tulips for the chorus boy Yuuri hadn’t learned the name of. They always had flowers waiting at their vanities. From lovers, friends, benefactors, family. Yuuri usually returned to an empty table and the image of a walking corpse reflected in the glass.

Yuuri had no reason to think he would find anything but blank, sand-papered wood at his vanity. No connections, patrons or admirers had made themselves known to him after nearly five years in St. Petersburg.

But there it was.

White petals folded into pretty swirls. Mint green bleeding from the blank shade to border each soft lip of the flower. They were bundled together in a set of twelve and swaddled in silver paper. Carnations. Yuuri recognized them in seconds. The soft, pillowy look was unmistakable. But he had never seen the plant in green before. Was it natural?

Foggy and curious he reached out. The unexpected gift lay comfortably in his arms as he cradled it close. It had been so long since he had held flowers like this. When had he done this last? The year of his graduation. That sounded right.

Yuuri looked up, eyeing himself in the lit mirror. His reflection was pale, athletic, painted and pretty. He held the flowers, framed by an arch of light bulbs embedded in the glass. He was almost elegant. The tux, makeup and hair gel almost belonged on him from this angle. The flowers were almost deserved.

Yuuri sat with a huff. Leaning on the vanity table he put his face in his hands. Almost did not count for anything.

With a thunk, the bouquet dropped into Yuuri’s wastebin.

Eyes closed, lashes pressed into his palms, Yuuri breathed. Inhale for three. Exhale for three. Inhale again. Stop thinking about the imaginary metal ring constricting into his chest. Yuuri counted backwards from ten, putting the flowers and the sleep deprivation and the failure and the end from his mind.

He wanted to fall back into his usual routine.

No he just wanted to fall back.

He wanted to collapse and never get up.

Yuuri peeled the colour from himself. Brown and black ink from his lids, red from his lips, pink from his cheeks. He scrubbed away at the pearly paint over his skin to reveal red, itching flesh. Stage makeup was thick, like cement. It left his face dry, swollen and crusting.

He wondered how many sponsors would be willing to grab at him like this. The thought made him smile. What would they think if they could see him as he was at home. Wearing frumpy boxers, covered in bruising, stretch marks littering his arms, legs and hips, eyes glassy as they watered, unable to sleep.

How could anyone want a body like that?

 _Yuuri_ didn’t want a body like that. He could feel his own flesh constricting around him like a straight jacket. He flailed and screamed and kicked within himself but his body kept him motionless. He sweat beneath his skin: awake, overheated and afraid. Like an injured bird, swaddled and waiting to be put out of its misery. Was that all that awaited him? He had traded agony in public for agony alone.

Yuuri discarded wet wipes into the garbage, blanketing over the forgotten flowers like feathers. He rose from his seat and left the room, not bothering to turn of the lights. He turned left, passing through thin workers halls and exiting through the back stage. Black floors snapped beneath his feet, bare wood towered above him.

It was an old building, the theatre that was home to Baranovskaya’s work. Yuuri could tell only because the brick walls and aged wooden structures looked ready to collapse backstage. It was nothing like the halls and stages and seating areas. Yakov had told him once that the building had been refurbished after the Soviet-era. Yuuri new little of what that meant but the fragile look on the director’s face had been enough for him to understand. Yuuri didn’t want to know what this place had been like before. He hardly liked knowing now.

Yuuri spilled out of the stage entrance, ignoring the thudding in his head or the inky colours bleeding into his vision as the lights and sounds of the night hit him. He was almost away. Halfway between one nightmare and the next. He stumbled down the stairs, through the alley and pointed himself successfully the street.

Just across the road, he told himself, head beginning to swim as his feet his the sidewalk. Just across the road was his stop. Right across for the Mariinsky. He nearly tripped over the curb onto the pavement trying to get there.

Feet stuttering over the road, Yuuri was brought to a halt by the feeling of metal bumping at his thigh, lights blaring in his vision and screeching on the road. He turned his head, only just seeing the outline of a black sports car pushing into his leg. His mouth fell open at the stopped car. Had they been there a second ago? Blinking and dazed and ready to fall Yuuri was frozen in the street. He looked just above the car. The light was green. Had it not stopped in time Yuuri would be dead, or worse, unable to dance in time for his next show.

Horns trumpeted through the summer air as the car remained halted, blacked out windows staring Yuuri down. What a time for Yuuri to lose it.

Shaking like an old post in Siberian wind, Yuuri remained. The door to the car opened on the drivers side. The metal spread upward like wings as a figure stepped out. Tall, lean, hand shading their eyes so they could see.

“Are you Katsuki?” The voice rang over the bustling of angry traffic behind him. “Yuuri Katsuki?”

The whole world span like a top on its axis and tipped over before blacking out.

* * *

Fainting wasn’t sleeping, not really. It was just a state of being that was not awake. There were no dreams, no memories, no sign of REM activity. It was just falling over, blinking and being somewhere else. Yuuri could only compare it to the time he’d had his wisdom teeth out. Even then, it wasn’t exactly a fair comparison. He’d woken in the same place he’d fallen. This was not the road of South Nevsky outside the Mariinsky Theatre.

Yuuri winced, vaguely aware of a throbbing on the back of his head and bruising by his tailbone as he sat up. His hand fell to plush leather beneath him as his eyes adjusted to the small, well lit space he was in. A car. He looked at a figure standing just outside and across from him. He rocked back and forth on his heels, shaded by the door the sat open like a wing. This was the car that hit him. Then this was…

“Awake, Mr. Katsuki?” Yuuri tried to scramble upright but found his head protesting with another flare of pain. The driver noticed, leaning down and into the car, raising his hand to coil in Yuuri’s hair. “Careful there. You’ve got quite the bump there.”

He was up close to the seated Yuuri, his face stern but not unkind. Yuuri could feel the stranger's hands caressing softly at the tender area. His fingers felt perfectly cold against the swelling skin. Yuuri couldn’t help but shudder and press his skull back into the hand, head lolling back with a groan.

The man leaned over Yuuri, resting his knee on the end of the back seat and reaching into a storage space behind the driver’s seat. Careful not to nudge the hurting dancer, he opened the compartment to reveal a misted water bottle. He held it to the offending skin on Yuuri’s head, pleased when his charge winced only a little before sinking into the coolness.

“Thank you,” Yuuri muttered, hand covering the stranger’s in an unvoiced offer to hold the bottle himself. To his surprise the stranger did not move. He kept his hand firm on the bottle beneath Yuuri’s fingers, nose-to-nose and eye-to-eye with the man. “I...I can do this myself.”

Beats passed between them before the stranger relented sitting back on his haunches, one foot still outside the car.

They were in a parking garage, it seemed. It wasn’t one Yuuri had been in before. With any luck it wasn’t far from the Mariinsky or somewhere else he knew well. It would be nightmare to inconvenience this man and then have to ask him for directions on top of that. He shouldn’t push his luck. He’d been not run over, saved and sheltered by this guy who happened to speak english. That was enough without needing any more from him.

Yuuri tool a good look at his saviour. He was handsome, well-dressed and of indeterminate age. His skin was smooth and tight, his jaw sharp, his eyes cold and weary, his hair silver and sleek, coiffed to perfection. His outfit walked the same line between youth and experience that his face did. A smooth, silvery-grey waistcoat coiled over his starch white dress shirt. His slacks were pressed and obviously custom fitted. His wristwatch was classic, with a face reminiscent of a grandfather clock that had been pressed into sleek, modern steel. Most peculiarly, in place of a suit jacket, the man wore a brown fur shawl. Against the line of his broad shoulders and tall frame it made him look like he had slaughtered a bear on his way home and hated the idea of wasting any chance to accessorize.

“I’ve spent many a strange night at the theatre,” the man said, looking over Yuuri intently, eyes curious and sharp. “But I can’t say I’ve ever had a night quite this strange.”

“You were just leaving a show then?”

“Yes, yours in fact,” the man answered. Yuuri ears rang that hollow, stressing note that appeared whenever anxiety seized him. It would seem this patron was inadvertently witnessing all his lowest points tonight. “I had hoped I might be able to meet you tonight but not like this.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” Yuuri’s head bowed. A fan. He used to have more of those. The number of patrons who came to see him were dwindling, however. Ever since...No. He couldn’t place blame for this. It had been Yuuri’s fault. He was the one declining. He just wasn’t young enough, lithe enough, hardy enough to catch attention anymore. His time on the stage was waning.

“Sir,” the man huffed before extending his hand. “My name is Victor Nikiforov. Victor will do.”

“Yuuri,” he answered back, mindlessly shaking the stranger's hand like it was his second nature. It would seem the meet-and-greets had seeped into his very being. “I’d say it’s a pleasure but-”

“I understand.” And it would appear he did. The smile on Victor’s face was not a false one as he slid out of the vehicle, pulling Yuuri along and steadying him as he got to his feet. “We all have our days, Yuuri.”

They stood like that a moment, hands still clasped together, toes of their formal shoes touching. Yuuri could smell his cologne; wild flowers, ocean air and musk filled his lungs. Their breaths mingled, their eyes met. It was silent and awkward and unnerving to Yuuri. He shifted, unsure of what to do. Was Victor waiting for something? A thank you? A reaction?

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked, in a gravelly accent that sounded aggressive and wise.  

Yuuri gulped. Did he mean drive him somewhere? Was he suggesting something? These men were often suggesting something.

“I think I just need to get home and sleep,” Yuuri said, mouth pressing into a line, skin crawling uncomfortably on his spine.

He tried to let go and step away but Victor held him there, his eyes flaring with something Yuuri couldn’t name. He almost glowed with the action, teeth sharp as his lips pulled back in a devilish grin.

“Consider it done.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my Gods, I have been working in this one for a long long time. If I'm being honest, it's my baby. 
> 
> Thank to mirry_morii for her help with this one. She's a real motivator!
> 
> I have been itching to write a darker story with twists and turns and this is my first attempt. I hope you guys enjoy. Leave kudos, subscribe, comment, it all helps me create content for you guys. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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